No Primaries, Ranked Voting

Considering that “we” the taxpayers pay for party primaries, excluding any registered voter from participating in an election sounds to me like a violation of the Constitution. I used to say that if a party wants to hold a closed primary, then that party should pay for it. Now, I think differently.

What we need is ranked choice voting on Election Day with no primaries. Anyone who qualifies is on the ballot. Candidates receiving their party’s convention nomination get the highest line that party is entitled to and are designated as endorsed.

On Election Day, the voters fill out a ballot on which they rank the candidates for every office in order of preference. Then the ballots are counted.

If anyone receives more than 50 percent of the vote, they win. If nobody receives more than 50 percent, then the person with the fewest total votes is eliminated and the votes cast for that person are redistributed to the next choice on those ballots. This continues until someone receives more than 50 percent of the votes.

This will guarantee that candidates who only have minority support will never win, even if they are in the lead after round one of the count.